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Your Perfect Media Center: The Why, The What & The How

Sometimes, you just need to indulge. People often think that inspiration comes in the form of complete affirmative action, of jumping up and down to be the best and to take no days off no matter the circumstances. Of course, those attitudes are frankly quite comical. While heavy motivation does lead to inspiration, it must never be total at the cost of the relaxed periods to balance them. You can learn and absorb as much relaxing on the sofa after a hard work day as you can fighting against the world.

In fact, indulging in a little comfort can help you feel rested, recovered, healed and well-supported, if only you give it the time to try. Of course, hard work and rest must always be balanced, but you know what they say, work hard and then play hard. For this reason, it might be very worth building your perfect media center from top to bottom. This could potentially give you the tools to play hard, to relax with those you love, and to indulge in the content you find the most appealing. After all, you can be just as inspired by watching a documentary at home as you can heading out into the world to explore.

Crafting your best media center does take time to do, however. Just like crafting any well-planned home space, you need to know your intent, how to get the best out of your initial vision, and of course the why, the what and the how of its implementation. Thankfully, we hope to cover each of these categories in this article, helping you design your comfort room with as much perfection as possible. When you sit in your comfortable room with your feet sat up, surrounded by your family, playing the brand new movie you just had to see, you’ll thank us for the effort. But let us earn that thanks first:

Televisions

It’s important for the main screen of your home to be worthwhile. Curved televisions can provide better viewing angles depending on the orientation of your room. Giving your television the focal space can be important, but ensure that the comfort of the seating arrangement gives you the most room to relax, to begin with. It might be worth wall mounting your television if needed, but for ease of use connecting to all of your other implements, it might be that a curated wooden television stand with many compartments can be the best for organization.

Be sure to buy a quality television. Smart televisions are the norm these days, but consider how you might future proof this screen. For example, check out these top 4K TVs to see just how quality can often help you keep this implement for years, perhaps even half a decade before you might need a new one. Remember that your media center is highly dependant on the screen you choose. You need a good one. You need it to have good color reproduction, a competent responses time, and reliability. If you utilize any other items such as a Steam Link for gaming, it might be worth checking its USB functionality, or just how many sockets and connectors it has for your various uses. Of course, you can also use HDMI splitters to give yourself more room, but sometimes it can be worth purchasing a TV that you needn’t have to get up to switch between input sources, such as a games console and cable box.

The Sofa

The sofa should ideally have one or two more spaces than there are members of your household. This will likely mean you need one or two new sofas, just in case you decide to invite guests around. If you have children, a couple of bean bag chairs can be enough, or even just some very comfortable carpet in the room.

The sofa should give good viewing angles of the media center, and be easy to clean. Why? Because it’s likely that children will eat all manner of snacks on it, and you will likely follow suit no matter how disciplined you think you are. The sofa is important to consider, and can really influence just how you watch or play your content. If you’re not fully comfortable, you’re always going to be shifting into your seat in order to get the best sense of relaxation, and this might distract you from the movie you’re watching. If you have room for it, symmetrically mirrored L shaped sofas can be wonderful to provide a fantastic relaxation for all the family and friends you have. Just be sure that you also purchase a competent footrest or two, a bed for your pet to rest in, and plenty of cushions and throws. These items will help you feel the most comfortable in your new media center, potentially leading to many long naps on the cushioned seating area itself.

The Content Providers

We’re going to assume you have your television access chiseled out, no matter if you only sign up for a few channels or use cable. You might decide to make your home media center a primarily sports focus, or perhaps a place to binge the latest series. However, these additional content providers often cost money. Consider if you have a Netflix subscription, if you’re logged into your Amazon Prime video account, or if you wish to subscribe to more encompassing options. Streaming USB sticks seem to account for the majority use of home entertainment centers, but it might be that your television has these streaming options built in, or the mini-PC you have connected could offer all of these items and more.

You might not need to pay over the odds for these items. Even plugging in your laptop through a DVI or HDMI cable can help you view content saved to your hard drive or streaming through your WiFi, but ensure that speeds and reach are good and that the television you’ve purchased can present your content well. For example, it might be worth signing up to more direct options that provide true Ultra HD if you purchase one of the aforementioned 4K televisions.

However, Netflix and Amazon are nowhere near the only content providers. You might purchase a Steam Controller with your integrated Steam Link in order to play your PC games in ‘Big Picture’ mode, effectively helping you play all the games you own in your media center with limited cost involved.

You might choose to progress down the gaming route more specifically, purchasing a PlayStation 4 Pro or an Xbox One X to truly make the use of that 4K capability. You’ll be stunned when you see it in action, especially with some of the breadth and truly stunning detail of the worlds offered in modern gaming. You might also choose to open a plex server, hosted on your own home system or server box, allowing you to access your content throughout your household on any device, without having to walk through the home, USB in hand. Your perfect media center is nothing without the content for you to view, so be sure you know exactly how, what and why you might implement these options for the best results.

If we had to make a recommendation, we would suggest picking up a Nintendo Switch for your family. From titles such as Mario Kart to Mario Party and Super Smash Bros releasing soon, hilarious fun with your family in a friendly setting can be had, as you all bond together over party food. This sounds like a perfect way to spend Christmas, provided you can finish your media center by then.

Speakers

A word about speakers. While you needn’t purchase the most expensive speakers in the world, or you might even cope with the television sound, you’d be surprised just how well a 5.1 surround sound system can help your content truly shine. Thankfully, the cost of these systems has plummeted over the years, so for around $100 you should be able to find a relatively high-end and decent set on Amazon. Just be sure to arrange the wires around the room appropriately, or even opt a little more for a wireless option. While this might seem like a luxury, it’s fair to say that the entire media center is in the first place, and thus you should feel no qualms about going a little over to truly perfect this space all around.

Why?

After all this advice, you might be thinking ‘why should I even build this?’ Well, of course, you don’t have to. This is an indulgence through and through. However, having a place like this in your home can help your family connect, can help you become a true connoisseur of content, and can help you take a massive, comfortable load off at the end of the day. You might ask why we might return with ‘why not?’ Only you can answer that question, but we truly help whatever you decide, you are able to enjoy your content in peace.

With these tips, building a perfect media center might be the most exciting project you take part in this year.

Disclosure: I only recommend products, services, or ideas I use or would use personally and believe will be good for my readers. Your opinions may vary from my opinions. You can also go here and read my PR and Disclosure Policies.